Berlin District Posts Warning About Scientology

Spiegel Online, Germany/January 23, 2009

A poster denouncing Scientology has gone up on a public kiosk outside
the Scientology headquarters in Berlin. Local officials warn that
Scientology may be "undemocratic" -- part of an ongoing battle between
Berlin and the guardians of L. Ron Hubbard's belief system.

With Tom Cruise in town this week to promote his new Nazi drama
Valkyrie, a district of Berlin has quietly posted a warning sign near
the city's Scientology headquarters, explaining that local authorities
mistrust the organization.

A public kiosk on the sidewalk in Charlottenburg bears a poster with a
big stop sign and a printed message: The district of
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf "expresses its opposition to the activities
of the Scientology sect in this district and in Berlin, and hopes that
responsible parties in Berlin will watch the Scientology sect with a
critical eye in the near future, and that any new information will be
made public."

Cruise is one of the world's most prominent Scientology members.
Posters advertising his new film, about the 1944 attempt by Lt.
Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg to assassnate Adolf Hitler,
are plastered across the German capital these days and the film hit
cinemas here on Thursday. Cruise said little about Scientology during
his publicity tour through Berlin earlier this week, and the poster
doesn't mention him. It only says that local officials see "a possible
danger to democratic society" in the "increased activities of
Scientology in this district."

The Scientology headquarters in Berlin opened in January 2007 amid
national controversy.

The German government has never considered the US-based "Church of
Scientology" a religion, refuses to exempt it from taxes and spies on
it regularly for "anti-constitutional activity" because of aggressive
recruitment practices. During a failed attempt to ban Scientology in
late 2007, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told the Bild am
Sonntag newspaper, "fundamental basic and human rights like the
dignity of man or the right to equal treatment are restricted or
abrogated," by the organization. "It rejects the democratic system."

Sabine Weber, president of the Berlin chapter of the Church of
Scientology, called Schäuble's remarks "unrealistic" and "absurd" at
the time, and a government poster outside the chapter headquarters may
not ease the Scientologists' fear of government persecution.

Some lawmakers in Germany have said the government won't find enough
evidence to ban Scientology, but that its recruitment practices are
"problematic" because, they say, it is more of a business than a
religion and can be difficult to leave.

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